Robert Brian "Robin" Cook (born May 4, 1940)[2] is an American physician and novelist who writes largely about medicine and topics affecting public health.

He wrote his first novel, Year of the Intern, while serving aboard the Polaris-type submarine USS Kamehameha.

His medical thrillers are designed, in part, to keep the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the socio-ethical problems associated with it.

[2]: 73  Cook says he chose to write thrillers because they give him "an opportunity to get the public interested in things about medicine that they didn't seem to know about.

"[7] The author admits he never thought that he would have such compelling material to work with when he began writing fiction in 1970.

In an interview with Stephen McDonald about the novel Shock, Cook admitted the book's timing was fortuitous: I suppose that you could say that it's the most like Coma in fact that it deals with an issue that everybody seems to be concerned about.

Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues, because it's the public that ultimately should be able to decide which way we ought to go in something as ethically questioning as stem cell research.

[8]To date, Cook has fictionalized issues such as organ donation, fertility treatment, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization, research funding, managed care, medical malpractice, medical tourism, drug research, and organ transplantation.

The Board of Trustees, directed by chairman Joseph B. Gildenhorn, are appointed to six-year terms by the President of the United States.